Sharing in the American Dream ain't easy if your condo developer is sleazy.

Friday, September 23, 2005

Three Blind Mice

The three non-resident unit owners that are in foreclosure are a curious lot.

From the information that I’ve been able to dig up I can see that they’re all relatively young and they all live in the south suburbs.

The only other common thread is that they either bought units with existing CHAC renters or purchased units that they soon enrolled in the CHAC program.

For those of you not familiar with the CHAC, it is a subsidized program that assists low income and moderate low income families with paying their rent.

My point in bringing this up is that coming up with money to move is a daunting task for some people. Whether you’re laying down a deposit---hiring movers or just having your friends help you out, the cash outlay can be financially draining. I can imagine that coming up with money to move for renters that take part in a federally subsidized program may have posed its own special set of problems.

Additionally, if you want to stay in the Housing Voucher program you have to physically go down to the CHAC office during there regular business hours and request moving papers. Then you have to actually find a landlord who will take the voucher for your rent. From what I’ve been told choice affordable housing is difficult to find. With seemingly every apartment building going condo, moderate and low income renters are increasingly getting squeezed out of neighborhoods and in some cases the city itself.

Obviously our three non-resident unit owners don’t understand the difficulty of such matters because if they had, they wouldn’t have just stopped paying their mortgages and monthly assessments.

As far as I’m concerned, their lack of fiduciary responsibility all but displaced the renters in those three units.

Owner #1---Ryan Hudson is being sued for foreclosure on 13 different properties.

Owner #2---Jamal Sanford is being sued for foreclosure on 5 different properties.

Owner #3—Akwetee Butler is being sued for foreclosure on 5 different properties.

Skeptical? Think I’m giving you the business? Plug those names into the on-line case info link for the chancery division and look for yourselves.

I’m simply amazed not only by the scope of the foreclosures within our association but the number of other small and mid-sized associations that are also losing assessment monies.

It’s simply mind boggling.

As we all know, heat and light bills just don’t get paid by wishing it so.

More importantly, people’s lives and shelter is being affected. One day you think everything is fine and the next you realize that your home has a new owner and they want you out of there.

While I’m not a big fan of rentals in a condo association, as long as we have to have them the renters should be treated with the same respect that every other resident receives. I can’t think of anything more disrespectful than some rock head’s fiscal irresponsibility putting someone out of their home.

For the record, we had more trouble with the absentee unit owners than with the renters.

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About Me

Urban pioneer and frustrated condo owner who wants to experience most of what Chicago has to offer. This is my tale of woe as my neighbors and I deal with the business of running a condo association that has been left in a shambles by our developer.